You Are Goodbye
by Xyliette
Summary: For escapismrocks, who wanted something a little angsty. Violet attempts to come to terms with the idea that she is never enough in any of her relationships and how that small but important fact always lands her in the same place- alone.


A/N: To start, I have to admit this is my first time doing anything that involves using Violet for more than comedic relief, and I hope I do the character some sort of justice. Secondly, I wanted to throw Cooper in at the end so badly you will not believe but, I think this stands better alone, even if I miss the pairing like crazy. Lastly, thanks to Hannah for looking over her own prompt and I hope you all enjoy my little out of comfort zone experience as much as I did.

**_  
--_**  
I remember here  
I remember you and me  
I remember wild and wild and free  
I remember stay  
I remember please don't ever leave  
I remember you made me believe  
That tomorrow and today the sun would hold our hands  
But the night came in to stay while you made other plans  
-Holly Conlan, "You Are Goodbye"  
**_--_**

You're a good person. You pay your taxes every year and you never try to get out of jury duty even though you haven't believed in the country's justice system since you were seven. You smile at strangers when they look at you oddly and you hold doors for little old ladies when no one is watching. You are considerate. You are a good friend. People should be glad to have you.

They're not.

You're a listener, out of all your friends, your entire life has been devoted to being a sounding board for problems. Sometimes you feel like all you do is listen. Other times you think your job has simply become nothing more than a platform with which to torture yourself because you honestly believe in the healing powers of thinking positively. You've published papers and presented them to your peers on the very subject but it's not working out in your world for some reason. All is does it taunt you with the possibilities.

Deep down you know that every person can be happy and certainly you still qualify as a human but you are anything but joyous with your circumstances because you deserve better. But you're a good person even though life likes to slap you in the face- you give to the neighborhoods, you pick causes, you go on little 5ks and raise awareness, you take on pro bono work without being asked, and you attend conferences that are supposed to keep you an advanced member of the psychiatric community. The problem is you're a good person. A great person even and no one ever notices. It's now not only expected but demanded and there's no one else to blame but yourself.

You are Dr. Violet K. Turner and you are one hell of an individual in every right but the trouble is you're the type of person everyone tramples over to get away from and you don't know why that is.

**_--_**

There are issues. Little kinks in your life that you've been attempting to work through secretly ever since the fighting started between your parents all those years ago. They tried, you know for your benefit, to keep their voices low and their tempers calm but your mother is a hurricane and eventually your father threw his hands into the air for a final time on a humid summer night in August. You watched him tell her he was leaving from behind the cracked door in your very lavender bedroom because, at times, your name seemed like nothing more than a fun pun for your mother dearest. She cried but he was immune to the salty tears and left just the same amidst her promises of working things out, or trying therapy, or giving him another child if that's what he so badly needed in his life.

She wasn't enough in those thirty seconds of turmoil. You should have known you were destined to follow in her small footsteps.

He caught you by the wood door that night watching as your world came to a screeching halt. He kissed your head, smoothed down your crazy curls and told you that he loved you and would see you very soon. They made certain that you understood that this was not your fault and that sometimes grown ups fall out of love and need to separate. Like every kid you held out for hope that one day they would simply give in and stop being stubborn so you could have your family again instead of this jagged, mangled mess of twigs. It never happened. Sometimes family trees get struck by lightning and no one bothers trying to put out the fire or repair the damage.

He picked you up on alternate Friday evenings to stay through Sundays and one Wednesday a month. You spent every other holiday with him so that both parents felt equal and so that you felt anything but. There were moments where you thought it was cool to get two batches of Christmas presents or to have two birthday parties but those moments were heavily outweighed by the sadness that liked to float in past your butterfly adorned drapes on late nights and remind you that it shouldn't have been like this. You were supposed to have a family instead of the one zombie mother who in all truth left when your father did that one night and a dad who paid you so much attention, born of guilt, when you were around that you wanted to scream. And you get it now.

You understand, wholeheartedly, that they did their best and that they gave you everything they could and that's why you don't hold the situation against them. That's why you declared yourself a healed member of the broken home club. Sure, there was resentment on your part for never getting to see both parents on the really important days, for them fighting over who would sit where at graduations and for sometimes being forgotten when schedules got too hectic to figure out who was supposed to have you that day. And there were times when you would huddle up with your little purple stuffed pig and cry your eyes out cause you wanted a mommy and a daddy and maybe a brother or sister instead of Daddy's new girlfriend and Mommy's sad eyes when she heard about him proposing, but none of the wishing ever did anything so you forgave instead because that's what you had to offer the matter.

See the thing was your mother never moved on. As it would turn out, not everyone does. Your mother was the type of person who could not get over trauma like that so you made sure you could. You took the necessary steps in life so that you were completely independent of all the bullshit; so that when you chose your mate you would be able to give them your all because you figure that's what went wrong with the model you were given to go off of. It hasn't really worked to date. For some reason you can give your heart and it's still not enough.

You are never enough and you are starting to wonder if you ever will be or if you should give up the good fight and resign yourself to needlepoint and Sunday night bingo.

**_--_**

There has always been a problem with the men in your life and you never wanted to think that it had anything to do with your father packing up and moving on without you. You were way above admitting that. There are no issues with your wacky childhood as far as you're concerned...except there are and they like to pop out when you least expect them, like a demon possessed jack-in-the-box.

First there was Jake or Jacob really, the high school boyfriend. Your geek friend who was into watching ants burn in the California sun under his magnifying glass, and who, you decided you may as well date before your mother sent you to a convent. So there was Jake and then Jake decided he couldn't handle your particular brand of crazy, him being a hypocritical ant killer and all, and moseyed on to greener pastures. In his wake you found yourself okay, tolerant of the fact that he wasn't really interested because truth be told you weren't either. It stung a little as it is supposed to but you weren't invested in good old Jake enough to realize that he was merely the second thread in the pattern.

The next big deal in your life was Bill. You've always had a thing for Bills. He was the Vice President for Student Affairs and everything your dreams were made of. Smart without being overbearingly intelligent, calm but passionate about the things he loved in life, charming without being cheesy and nice without being a pansy. Bill was the person you always envisioned yourself with and albeit unintentionally, you fell face first into the mud puddle of love. Two years of bliss, endless daydreams about maybe one day wearing a white dress for this man and planning on where you could both live together and still be successful led to a devastating blow. Bill wanted to be a politician and apparently, for reasons you still have yet to comprehend, you were a liability to the process. You simply reasoned that if his job was going to be more important than you then you didn't want him anyway but it didn't stop you from trying to bury yourself under a heap of blankets for three days straight until your roommate, who was just catty enough to hate you for having the seemingly perfect life, snatched the pillow from your face and demanded that you get off your ass and do something about it.

The something you did was Jared. He was never a planned idea. He was three pale ale beers, seven shots of tequila and one losing round of pool. He shoved you into a doorknob leaving a bruise on your back and fucked you like a jack rabbit until it made you queasy and you begged him to just finish already so your head could stop spinning. The next morning you arose with a true appreciation for buyer's remorse and snatched your clothing only to find that Jared, who looked good enough last night, was going to be your new "lab partner" in the wake of Bill's absence and it made you just sick enough to dash from the room without glancing back.

Clearly, it was not intentional. Your first and only child to date was conceived out of unfiltered heartbreak and you wondered, that one day staring down at the stick that would ruin your life, if not every child was. Because the people in the world you had found so far made a lot of mistakes and up until Bill you were flawless, well flawless to the people you allowed in your life. Unscratched in the way you made yourself appear to the rest of the world. Now you had a blue and gold patch to wear that read loud and clear, "I am damaged goods." After all your work at becoming a whole person this was how it was going to be.

You thought about it. You believe, on some level, every woman in this situation must, but abortion wasn't something you could follow through with. You thought about the entirety of the circumstances for a long time. A child was never something you wanted. It wasn't something you daydreamed of, not even when Bill was around. You never babysat anything growing up, you never had siblings, you rarely had friends younger than you. Children were not something that entered your head until that very moment. And in that split second you decided that if you were a strong enough person to raise your mother for half your life and a good enough person to let your father off the hook for essentially ruining your family that you could certainly raise a baby. It couldn't be any harder than what you had already been through.

But in the four weeks it took you to make master plans in your head about finishing degrees and finding places to live and whether or not to tell poor Jared, something happened. You drove yourself to the emergency room with an aching stomach of pain and jeans stained in wet, fresh blood. You parked in the assigned lot and walked yourself in without anyone at your side because there was no one, short of the roommate who now mocked your misfortune, to hold your hand.

You knew before they told you. It didn't take a genius to realize that not even an undeveloped baby didn't want you. Or your body didn't want it or some ridiculous rambling speech made by the on call physician about fate and the likelihood that this pregnancy would have never panned out. You didn't care. You did what they asked, answered the stupid questions, held your face firm through the displeasing adventure and then ran as fast as you could out of the doors when you were released.

You told yourself to think of it as a get out of jail free card. You told yourself you were lucky for once but the truth was you weren't enough yet again. Your body wasn't enough. Your new dreams of pushing a toddler on swings and browsing magazines for cribs while ignoring the homework piled up high was simply not going to help. It never was. When the key turned over in the ignition and the engine of your brand new sedan (courtesy of your still guilt ridden father) roared to life you buried your face in the steering wheel and sobbed until it all faded into numbness.

When you pulled back, cheeks red and nose disgustingly runny, you decided that this was never something you were going to share. It was unnecessary to point out another way in which you had been unable to hang onto a person who would have been good for you; a person for whom you would have made yourself more than good enough for. As the blinker clicked steadily and you stared at the green light hanging above, you watched a stroller with a screaming infant make its way to the medical center. From that instant on you hated children and you weren't going to explain it to anyone who asked.

**_--_**

In your adult life run ins with men were just as unfortunate. You were definitely safer and more experienced but there was a switch you could never turn off. There's a compassion and a caring that bubbles just beneath your surface that makes you a perpetual doormat. You like to help not only because it makes you feel effective and full but because it can ease someone else's discomfort. You make them feel that they are needed and wanted and good- all the things the world refuses to let you feel on a daily basis.

There were several instances with Jerry, Ben, Gregory and Michael that you'd like to forget because they knew how to work your system. They knew which buttons to engage, when and how and then took advantage at every opportune moment. They'd push you away and reel you right back in and though you hated every second of the torture you could never break free. You don't do the breaking up. You've dated serial monogamists, serial daters, serial cheaters, serial whores...name it and you've tried it but the common theme remains. For whatever reason, whatever explanation you aren't enough to keep around. That was until Alan.

Alan was the grown up version of Bill, well with a few more scratches on his shiny surface. He was well off, seemingly independent without the issue being burdensome and witty but most importantly he made you feel loved like you never had before. For three whole years you gave him your life. You supported his decisions, talked things over, cooked dinner together, met with his family and even began looking into other houses so you could live together. It seemed like a reasonable substitute seeing as he didn't believe in marriage.

There was nothing to case study about Alan. He didn't have horrible parents who made the institution look bad, he wasn't noncommittal, he was simply him and you grew to adore his complicated simpleness. Of course, there was fighting and threats and declarations of calling it all off but you were confident that you had found "the one" so you threw everything you had into the relationship, even offering to head to counseling on your own when things got too bumpy. He insisted you were the one with baggage and issues and you were inclined to agree and fix yourself up even more so he would love you the way you deserved- the way you loved him.

The problem, it seemed, with your perfect mate was that he had a hobby of getting settled, taking things for granted, becoming dissatisfied and then pulling away only to return a few days later deeply remorseful and bearing gifts of bright flowers and sad teddy bears that held chocolate.

Everyone said what you never wanted to think. Sometimes one person is fated for you and you are not fated for them. As luck would have it, months after you took him to Italy, weeks after you signed on a new home (in only your name at his insistence), and days after you asked him to reconsider the idea of joining legally, he left you for good. He was your everything and you were barely good enough to warrant a voicemail message at two o'clock in the afternoon stating that he wanted space indefinitely.

You don't get it, honestly, there was nothing more that could have been done. You've literally sat down and crunched the numbers and you come up with the same hopeless numbers every single time. Your worth to him was zero.

**_--_**

But none of those instances, none of the Chips or Dales or Tom, Dick and Harrys compare to this feeling. There she lies. The one person you thought would never leave you. Buried neatly, sex feet under the rich deep brown soil of the earth. Your mother. Kept alive a shoddy twenty-seven years after her world really ended. They told you it was a suicide. There was no note, just pills, many, many pills and her lifeless form on the couch of a home you occupied for an awfully long time.

He was here. Your father, who you now simply referred to as William even though it angered him, flew back from his new place on the East coast and brought along wife number five whose name you have yet to care to learn. It became apparent after wife three that he was searching for something he'd never find and was too pride filled to go back and capture. You don't blame him for trying to stay on the higher ground, you just hope you don't do the same thing when push comes to shove.

You breathe in the deep haze of suburban Orange County and look at the vibrant green grass that lines the walkway. There should be words tumbling from your mouth, you always tell your patients to speak their minds in these type of situations, but there is nothing you can conjure up or mutter that will amount to anything important. All your mother did was lead with an example of a miserable woman who was never able to make it completely out of the woods and now as you stare down at the freshly packed dirt you realize that you, despite all attempts not to, have become her. Not outwardly, certainly you do keep up the air of a person who is trying and flailing and fighting for gold prizes and blue ribbons, but on the inside you are a lonely shell and a tired soul.

The problem is there was never anything else you could have given her. Nothing you could have said to make her stay. No words of love whispered over crackling phone lines that would have made her want to live. You are not enough for her and she wasn't enough for him. It's a vicious little cycle that you were born into.

A cycle that realizes that you are a good person but still repays you with this hailstorm, so for today you sit, slumped up against a huge shady tree and pay tribute to all the horrible things that have happened. Replaying them over and over. Missing friends, lovers, parents, and a baby. These are the things you carry around in your bag, the issues you don't talk about so you can pretend to be well adjusted, the problems that like to lurk around dark corners. Today you have a pity party. Today you allow yourself to wallow. Today you proudly bare that stupid patch that was sewn on your chest before you could realize what happened.

They all leave you in the end. Whether it be a malicious and willing escape or an inappropriate and sorrowful journey they do walk away, often times stealing chunks of your beating heart as they go. Taking with them the promises of better days and lifetimes that could have been but everyone says what must be cherished is the time spent, the connections made, the memories created. Obsessing over loss only leads to more insignia and that's the last thing you want because there's still hope. There's always hope that someday, down the road, just when your heavy load begins to sag off your shoulders, someone will lift it back up and lighten the load. Maybe even doing so for longer than a few paces. So, with another long draw of smoggy air you decide that tomorrow you will stand. Tomorrow you will rise and work and tell patients, with a smile, that life is what you want it to be. Sometimes less than what you want it to be but rarely something more so it's okay to aim big, to envision the future you want and to think positively in a pessimist's world. Because in the end the only person you need to be good enough for is yourself and you didn't understand that until today.

The world is too cruel to try and play to everyone else's expectations twenty-four-seven.

You had to say goodbye to many to say hello to yourself and you know that while the pain may linger for far longer than it should and that you will devote too much of your heart to every person you meet, including your patients, that in the end it will be okay because the one person who will never leave this crumbling façade you have become is, for better and worse, yourself and that's all that's necessary right now.

**_--_**

A/N2: I'm not good with "who" and "whom" usage (and Word is the worst grammar checker that ever lived) so if that's wrong up there where the baby discussion lived, please feel free to fill me in. I'd appreciate it.


End file.
